Makes it hard to fathom that Bush wasn't in on the sales job. Rummy was one of his favorite "hands" and I find it hard to believe the Feith was so thoroughly rotten by himself. The more this goes on the worse it seems to be. Jim

So there are no honest politicians whatsoever? Was Reagan a liar? Washington? James Madison? Lincoln?

No. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Are you so naive to believe that the man you voted into office is all truthful? I remember a famous line from Jack Nickolson, in 'A Few Good Men' when he said "You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!" Presidents from the beginning of this country have witheld truth and lied to the american people for what they think was a good reason. I liked Reagan and I think he was one of the greatest Presidents of the 20th century. But he lied about Iran-Contra.

"Yes, I was the one who ordered the mass murder of Women and Children in Waco".
"Yes, I was the one who ordered the capture and expulsion of little Ellian Gonzalez back to Cuba".
"Yes, I have no bananas".

2006 SLK350
Something Silver

â€śIâ€™m sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow youâ€™re not patriotic. We need to stand up and say weâ€™re Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration.â€ť
- Hillary Clinton

Rare Protests at Brigham Young Over a Planned Cheney Appearance
George Frey for The New York Times
Students at Brigham Young University protesting an invitation to Vice President

By MARTIN STOLZ
Published: April 11, 2007
PROVO, Utah, April 10 â€” The invitation extended to Vice President Dick Cheney to be the commencement speaker at Brigham Young University has set off a rare, continuing protest at the Mormon university, one of the nationâ€™s most conservative.

Some of the faculty and the 28,000 undergraduate and graduate students, who are overwhelmingly Republican, have expressed concern about the Bush administrationâ€™s support for the war in Iraq and other policies, but most of the current protest has focused on Mr. Cheneyâ€™s integrity, character and behavior. Several students said, for example, that they were appalled at Mr. Cheneyâ€™s use of an expletive on the Senate floor in a June 2004 exchange with Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont.

â€śThe problem is this is a morally dubious man,â€ť said Andrew Christensen, a 22-year-old Republican from Salt Lake City. â€śItâ€™s challenging the morality and integrity of this institution.â€ť

Students and faculty at Brigham Young â€” a private university sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints â€” are expected to adhere to an honor code, which emphasizes â€śbeing honest, living a chaste and virtuous life, abstaining from alcohol and tobacco, using clean languageâ€ť and following church doctrines. They are also required to follow strict modesty guidelines for grooming and attire.

In the two weeks since the university announced that Mr. Cheney would be the speaker at the commencement on April 26, hundreds of students have attended respectful and quiet campus demonstrations about his presence, and some 3,600 students and alumni had signed petitions by Tuesday afternoon seeking a â€śmore appropriateâ€ť replacement speaker.

Warner P. Woodworth, 65, an independent and a professor at the universityâ€™s Marriott School of Management, questioned Mr. Cheneyâ€™s assertions about Al Qaedaâ€™s ties to the government of Saddam Hussein and his involvement in disclosing the identity of Valerie Wilson, a covert officer in the Central Intelligence Agency, which led to the conviction of I. Lewis Libby Jr., Mr. Cheneyâ€™s former chief of staff.

â€śIt just feels like too much sleaze and not the right values for B.Y.U.,â€ť Mr. Woodworth said. â€śWe espouse honesty, chastity, integrity, ethics, virtue and morality, and he does not epitomize those values.â€ť

Several students said they would welcome Mr. Cheney on campus at a forum where he could be questioned. â€śI just donâ€™t feel that Cheney represents what we want B.Y.U. to represent,â€ť said Sharon Ellsworth, 23, a junior and a Democrat from Marietta, Pa. â€śIt would be cool to have him in a different setting.â€ť

Some students said they were looking forward to Mr. Cheneyâ€™s speech. David Lassen, 23, the chairman of the B.Y.U. College Republicans, said he hoped to present the vice president with petitions of support for his appearance on campus, signed by about 2,000 students and alumni.

â€śWeâ€™re excited for the world to see what B.Y.U. really is,â€ť Mr. Lassen said. â€śNo matter what you think of Cheney, heâ€™s easily the most powerful man in the world.â€ť

Mr. Lassen also said the debate about Mr. Cheneyâ€™s speech proves that, despite its reputation, Brigham Young â€śis a place for minority voices and healthy political discourse.â€ť

Mr. Cheneyâ€™s deputy press secretary, Megan McGinn, said Tuesday that the address would not be a â€śpolitical speech.â€ť

â€śThe vice president is looking forward to attending the graduation ceremony at Brigham Young,â€ť she said.

Early this year, the White House asked university administrators for a chance to speak at the graduation, a Brigham Young spokeswoman, Carri Jenkins, said. The churchâ€™s president and prophet, Gordon B. Hinckley, and his two top counselors, â€śin their capacity as members of the board of trusteesâ€ť of Brigham Young, then extended an invitation to Mr. Cheney, Ms. Jenkins said.

She emphasized that neither the university nor the church viewed the invitation as an endorsement of Bush administration policies or the Republican Party. And most students said that despite their concerns, they respected the authority of university and church leaders.

Here in Utah County, 85 percent of voters supported the Bush-Cheney ticket in 2004, a higher percentage than the rest of the state. Those opposed to Mr. Cheney, Mr. Lassen added, represent Democrats and a small number of Republicans, and the university remains a firmly conservative place.

Currently, 49 percent of voters in Utah are Republican and 18 percent Democrats, with the rest independents or divided among minor parties. That represents a six-percentage-point decline for Republicans since January, based on telephone surveys conducted by Dan Jones, a political science professor at the University of Utah and president of a polling firm that began measuring public opinion in Utah in 1960.

The surveys also show that Mr. Cheneyâ€™s stature among Utah Republicans has declined in recent months and that more Republicans are identifying themselves as independents, Mr. Jones said.

Many students who oppose the invitation to Mr. Cheney describe Brigham Youngâ€™s commencement as not just a ceremony but also a religious service, which in the past often featured top church leaders who shared spiritual messages.

Tricia Campbell, 21, a senior from Orem who is a Republican, said Mr. Cheneyâ€™s behavior in office â€śjust doesnâ€™t fitâ€ť with what she had learned from the universityâ€™s mission of promoting of â€śintegrity, character and moral development.â€ť

â€śI thought commencement would be a spiritual, uplifting exercise in which I could take advice from someone I held in the highest esteem,â€ť Ms. Campbell said. â€śIt seems that was an extremely idealistic notion.â€ť

WASHINGTON — World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz is taking "full responsibility" for helping a close woman friend get transferred to a high-paying job.

Wolfowitz's comments — contained in an e-mail message Monday to the bank's employees — were aimed at defusing outrage and accusations of favoritism from the bank's staff association.

The case involves the transfer of a bank employee, Shaha Riza, who has been romantically linked to Wolfowitz. She was detailed to an outside assignment to the State Department in September 2005, shortly after Wolfowitz became bank president.

To avoid a conflict of interest, Wolfowitz said he sought the advice of the bank's Board of Directors once he took over the World Bank in the summer of 2005.

"I subsequently acted on the advice of the board's Ethics Committee to work out an agreement that balanced the interests of the institution and the rights of the staff member in an exceptional and unprecedented situation," Wolfowitz's letter to employees explained.

The bank's rules bar employees from supervising anyone with whom they had a personal relationship.

The bank's association, however, charged that the job transfer — which it deemed a "promotion" — didn't conform to bank rules. Normally, such a promotion is "supposed to be competitive, vetted and approved by the relevant sector board," the association said last week.

In his letter to staff, Wolfowitz responded: "I accept full responsibility for the actions taken in this case."

His letter did not mention Riza by name or provide details of her employment and compensation.

"I have already indicated to the board my intention to cooperate fully in their review of the details of the case," Wolfowitz said. "In particular, I will ensure that the board has access to the facts in this case, in a manner that also respects the bank's rules concerning the right of every staff member to the confidentiality of his or her records,"

Before the job transfer, Riza worked as a communications adviser in the bank's Middle East Department.

The Government Accountability Project, a watchdog group, put Riza's salary at $193,590 as a result of the job transfer and generous pay raises. The group's officials say she was paid by the World Bank and still remains on the bank's payroll. Bank officials would not discuss her salary, citing confidentiality reasons.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Riza had been transferred to the department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs from the World Bank in September 2005, but was still being paid by the World Bank and not the U.S. government.

McCormack said she had left in September 2006 and was now working for the Foundation for the Future, an international organization that gets some funding from the State Department.

"It's an independent international NGO," or nongovernmental organization, he said. "Talk to the World Bank. That's who she works for," McCormack said.

Bea Edwards, international director of the Government Accountability Project, found the situation involving Riza's compensation disconcerting. "It's ironic that Mr. Wolfowitz lectures developing countries about good governance and fighting corruption, while winking at an irregular promotion and overly generous pay increases to a partner," she said.

The World Bank staff association said it has been "inundated with messages from staff expressing concern, dismay and outrage" over the matter.

The flap comes as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund prepare to hold their spring meetings this weekend.

The World Bank's stated mission is to fight poverty and improve the living standards of people in developing countries. It lends about $20 billion a year for various projects.

Wolfowitz said he didn't want the flap to overshadow the World Bank's mission. "What remains of the utmost importance to me is the protection of the interests of this institution as a whole, and our need to remain focused on our agenda of helping the world's poor."

President Bush' appointment of Wolfowitz — a main architect of the Iraq war as deputy defense secretary — to the top job at the World Bank was greeted with protests by international aid and other groups. Critics worried that he might try to use the bank to help America's allies and punish its enemies.

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush's aides are lying about White House e-mails sent on a Republican account that might have been lost, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy suggested Thursday, vowing to subpoena those documents if the administration fails to cough them up.

"They say they have not been preserved. I don't believe that!" Leahy shouted from the Senate floor.

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said there is no effort to purposely keep the e-mails under wraps, and that the counsel's office is doing everything it can to recover any that were lost.

"The purpose of our review is to make every reasonable effort to recover potentially lost e-mails, and that is why we've been in contact with forensic experts," he said. (Read about the White House e-mail)

Leahy scoffed.

"I've got a teenage kid in my neighborhood that can go get 'em for them," he told reporters later.

In an effort to stave off charges that Democrats were setting perjury traps for witnesses on the issue, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, released 10 questions the panel would be asking Gonzales.

"'I don't know' will not be an adequate response to any question by the committee," said Schumer, who is leading the investigation. Gonzales, who in the past has issued conflicting accounts of his role in the firings, has disappeared from public view in recent days.

Senate Democrats continued to toughen their stance against the White House over the firings of eight prosecutors over the winter.

After his speech, Leahy's committee approved -- but did not issue -- new subpoenas to compel the administration to produce documents and testimony about the firings.

Democrats say the firings might have been improper, but that probe yielded a weightier question: Whether White House officials such as political adviser Karl Rove are intentionally conducting sensitive official presidential business via non-governmental accounts to evade a law requiring preservation -- and eventual disclosure -- of presidential records.

The White House issued an emphatic "No" to those questions during a conference call with reporters Wednesday, saying the Republican National Committee accounts were used to comply with the Hatch Act, which bars political work using official resources or on government time.

But White House spokesman Scott Stanzel acknowledged that 22 White House aides have e-mail accounts sponsored by the RNC and that e-mails they sent may have been lost.

Stanzel said the White House was trying to recover the e-mails and could not rule out that some may have involved the firings.The administration also is drafting new guidelines for aides on how to comply with the law.

Leahy was not buying that.

"E-mails don't get lost," Leahy insisted. "These are just e-mails they don't want to bring forward."

The revelation about the e-mails escalates a standoff between the Democrat-controlled Congress and the White House over the prosecutor firings. The subpoenas come a few days before Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is to appear before Leahy's committee to fight for his job Tuesday.

Leahy's panel approved new subpoenas that would require the Bush administration to surrender hundreds of new documents and force two officials -- Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General William Moschella and White House political aide Scott Jennings -- to reveal their roles in the firings. The panel delayed for a week a vote on whether to authorize a subpoena for Rove's deputy, Sara Taylor.

Leahy has not issued any subpoenas, but permission by his committee Thursday would give him authority to require testimony from all eight of the fired U.S. attorneys and several White House and Justice Department officials named in e-mails made public as having had roles in the firings. The White House has refused to make officials such as Rove available to testify under oath.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Pentagon Challenged on Lynch and Tillman
By JOHN HOLUSHA
The New York Times

Military and other administration officials created a heroic story about the death of Cpl. Pat Tillman to distract attention from setbacks in Iraq and the mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Grhaib, the slain manâ€™s younger brother, Kevin Tillman, said today.

Testifying before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Mr. Tillman said the military knew almost immediately that Corporal Tillman, an Army Ranger who left a career as a pro football player to enlist, had been killed accidentally in Afghanistan in April 2004 by fire from his own unit. But officials chose to put a â€śpatriotic glowâ€ť on his death, he said.

Mr. Tillman said the decision to award his brother a Silver Star and to say that he died heroically fighting the enemy was â€śutter fictionâ€ť that was intended to â€śexploit Patâ€™s death.â€ť

Former Pvt. Jessica Lynch leveled similar criticism today at the hearing about the initial accounts given by the Army of her capture in Iraq. Ms. Lynch was rescued from an Iraqi hospital in dramatic fashion by American troops after she suffered serious injuries and was captured in an ambush of her truck convoy in March 2003.

In her testimony this morning, she said she did not understand why the Army put out a story that she went down firing at the enemy.

â€śIâ€™m confused why they lied,â€ť she said.

Mr. Tillman and Ms. Lynch appeared at a hearing called to examine why â€śinaccurate accounts of these two incidentsâ€ť were put out by the administration. Todayâ€™s session was part of the Democratically-controlled Congressâ€™s effort to hold the Bush Administration accountable for its conduct of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other issues.

Pentagon officials and military representatives were scheduled to testify later in the hearing.

Ms. Lynch said she could not know why she was depicted as a â€śRambo from West Virginia,â€ť when in fact she was riding in a truck, not fighting, when she was injured.

Dr. Gene Bolles, a doctor who treated Ms. Lynch at a hospital in Germany after she was rescued, said that her injuries, while extensive, were not the result of bullet wounds, as first described.

Mr. Tillmanâ€™s tone was more bitter than Ms. Lynchâ€™s. He described the early accounts of his brotherâ€™s death as â€śdeliberate and calculated liesâ€ť and â€śdeliberate acts of deceit,â€ť rather than the result of confusion or innocent error.

For her part, Ms. Lynch said in her testimony that other members of her unit had acted with genuine heroism that deserved the attention she received. â€śThe bottom line is the American people are capable of determining their own ideas of heroes, and they donâ€™t need to be told elaborate tales,â€ť she said.

Representative Henry Waxman, Democrat of California, the chairman of the committee, said the hearings were intended to determine the â€śsources and motivationsâ€ť for the erroneous accounts and to see whether Administration officials had been held accountable for them.

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.